News Nuggets: 30 July 2009

THE POLITICS OF NO, NEW AND IMPROVED: House minority leader Mike May wants to bring change to the state’s Joint Budget Committee. The way he sees it, the state needs a budget rescue, no doubt about it, and that begins with some real fresh thinking. For May, the path to a solution is obvious, because when you just want to get beyond the usual dead-ender boundaries of stale Colorado GOP politics, well, one name immediately comes to mind: Kent Lambert! That old dog from Colorado Springs, he’ll bring up your Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights at every JBC meeting! He’ll get that glorious amendment read into the minutes of every derned session! No government spending shenanigans on his government spending committee. They want a budget? How about no budget! You betcha.

THE PISTOL FROM YUMA: State GOP Rep. Cory Gardner got a push in his race against Fourth District Democratic U.S. Rep Betsy Markey today. Gardner was named one of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s 13 “Young Guns”– swing-district candidates marked out to receive special national support and funding in their campaigns. Gardner has so far met the Young Gun criteria set down by the NRCC, but he has to keep hitting benchmarks if he is to continue to win favor, according to Chairman Pete Sessions. The NRCC designation may not rise to the level of an official Party endorsement, but it’s a far cry from the humiliating bed-wetting references Gardner was forced to endure during the last state legislative session, when a bill he introduced was called out as ideological posturing by rogue Republican JBC member Don Marostica. “It feels all nice and warm when you’re doing it,” he said of the Young Gun’s rainy-day fund proposal, which put aside no actual funds. “It’s very, very warm, and you lay there and you feel good, but in the morning you’ve got to get up.”